


like a prayer for which no words exist

by insomniaks (effervescently)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Inspired by Poetry, M/M, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Siken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 04:16:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2010639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/effervescently/pseuds/insomniaks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky comes home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like a prayer for which no words exist

Steve wakes up on the shore with the taste of the Potomac in his mouth and the ghost of a touch. His arm bears bruising no human hand could make and he sees Bucky's face like he's burned into his retinas. While being interrogated, Steve claims to have forgotten how he got out of the river - Natasha just smiles at him and squeezes his hand.

Steve isn't sure if he is imagining when she whispers "We'll find him."

An emergency meeting is organized - Tony, Bruce and Clint gather intel on HYDRA bases while Steve, Sam and Natasha make sure no one gets away.

Sam and Steve look the other way when Nat executes a higher-up from the Red Room, and she swears she saw a glint of metal from the corner of her eye.

It happens every time. Nine bases, nine raids, nine sightings. He's always in arms reach, but never quite there. A ghost.

Steve begins to feel hopeful again when they raid a base hidden in underground passageways of Prague and find all targets neutralized. It means he's remembering, Steve thinks, _hopes._

Hydra, his missions, his life before the fall,  _them_.

Some time after the first December snow enveloped Paris and there's only one base left, Steve finds his hotel room unlocked. Nothing is touched except his bed, where a flyer from Smithsonian's Captain America exhibit is placed on his pillow. The paper is crinkled and worn, like it's been in someone's pocket for too long and touched a few times too many.

His breath hitches in his throat when he thinks of Bucky holding onto it for all these months.

Steve almost placed it in his backpack when he noticed something was scribbled on the back. Beneath a picture of them smiling and posing like heroes, someone's messy scrawl said:

_Soon._

He doesn't tell Natasha and Sam and he is not surprised when they raid the base in Berlin and there are Hydra agents tied up and lined up against a wall, with Bucky holding a gun and waiting for them. He looks at Steve like a soldier waiting for a command when he grins at him and says "Captain."

Steve doesn't speak, doesn't know if he can, so he just nods before joining the other agents and fighting side by side with him.

After they're done, Stark's private jet is waiting for them - Bucky clutches his hand on the way to the airport and doesn't let go until he falls asleep on the plane, exhaustion claiming him.

Even then, his fingers circle Steve's wrist, tightening when he stirs in his sleep.

Steve doesn't sleep,  and watches Bucky in the dimmed pre-dawn light instead. His face is almost the same as it was seventy five years ago. A little older, with a few new scars and a haircut long overdue, but it's still him. Steve watches his eyes flutter as he dreams and he looks so young and it feels like a lazy morning in Brooklyn, only that's gone and been gone a long time now.

Steve is hesitant to wake him when they land. He doesn't know what he'll be like, what reaction he should expect. Everyone else leaves the plane except Natasha, who lingers in the shadows. Just in case.

He gives him distance before calling his name, but it is unnecessary because Bucky just blinks a few times before a slow, hesitant smile lights up his face and he buries his face in the crook of Steve's neck.

"Long time no see, pal," Bucky murmurs against his skin and Steve wonders if he can feel his pulse fluttering.

"I can say the same for you, punk," Steve mutters into his hair. He feels Bucky's arms, one warm and one cold, around his waist, and he closes his eyes.

Pretending. Pretending that everything is fine. Pretending that they'll go back to Brooklyn. Their Brooklyn - a tiny, self-contained space where there's only them and Steve's sketches and Bucky's records and music enveloping their shoebox room and the bed they shared because there was no other way. 

Steve doesn't know what will happen and neither does Bucky.

"Hope you didn't do anything stupid while I was gone," he teases Steve.

"How could I? You took all the stupid with you."

"Punk."  Bucky grinned.

"Jerk."

And like that, with a smile and a playful punch in the arm, their song continued. The record needle slid back into place as they worked together, answering any question the Avengers might have, helping him adjust to the modern world with Tony's crash course and a short stay at Avengers Tower. 

Bucky almost didn't agree to stay, but Steve offered to stay with him. They spent that first night on a balcony overlooking NYC, marveling over the lights and sipping on beer even though neither of them could get drunk. Steve told him about waking up in a room, listening to a tape they'd watched together. He told him about stepping out on Times Square and feeling like he'd been hit by the weight of time passed. 

Bucky told him about what he remembered after the fall - brief flashes of being frozen, mission briefings, a red-headed spy whose face he couldn't quite remember, and blood.

Blood on his hands, blood on his face, everywhere. He didn't tell him that last part voluntarily, no.

He woke up screaming in the dark, Steve running into his room and holding him like he could undo every wrong in the world. Bucky sobbed into Steve's shirt, clutching it in his hands while Steve rubbed his back. He sobbed until the tears dried up and then he just shook in his arms until darkness pulled him down again, lulling him into peaceful sleep.

Neither of them mentioned what happened, not until it happened again.

This time, they were home in Steve's apartment in Brooklyn. Bucky didn't scream, he just woke up startled and afraid. He smoked a cigarette on the balcony and it helped a  _little_ , but he was sure it was power of suggestion as his body didn't respond like that of a normal human. 

He gazed at the Moon. It was huge and hung low in the sky, the same one he watched so long ago. The same one he saw Steve sketch numerous times - Steve watching the Moon and Bucky watching Steve.

He paced the living room, thankful for the renovated and thus completely silent parquet, before settling down in front of Steve's comically overflowing bookshelf. That's where they differed - Bucky had embraced all this new technology, his trusted Kindle on his bedside table, while Steve still scoured old bookstores and large chains alike.

Bucky leafed through a couple of books, mostly history and tales of heroic battles and epic romances, with a couple of feminist and LGBT texts Steve had acquired on this year's Pride scattered in between.

A smile tugged on his lips as he remembered them walking hand in hand at the head of the parade, happy and sad at the same time. He remembered looking at Steve, who was so happy to be there with his best friend. Bucky was happy to be alive in this age, where he could marry whomever he wanted, even though that person was oblivious. He shook his hand as he picked up what seemed to a book of poetry and settled down on the couch.

It was already late morning when Steve found Bucky sprawled on the couch, Steve's favorite book open on his chest. Curious, he picked it up.

Bucky had always had a habit of dog-earing and underlining parts that he liked, and Steve's heart broke as he read them.

 

“We have not touched the stars,  
nor are we forgiven, which brings us back  
to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes,  
not from the absence of violence, but despite  
the abundance of it.” 

 

“Sorry about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine."

 

“A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river  
                    but then he’s still left  
with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away  
                                                                        but then he’s still left with his hands.” 

 

"Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you.  
Quit milling around the yard and come inside.” 

 

Steve rubbed away the wetness in his eyes and decided, mustering up all that he had in his heart and more.

He grabbed a pencil and underlined a poem he'd read a thousand times and knew by heart, biting at his lip as he tucked the book on Bucky's chest before taking a shower.

The water was scorching on his skin and Steve closed his eyes, ignoring the tightness of his chest.

He heard a quiet thud through the sounds of the shower, like Bucky had dropped something. There was a pause before he heard him moving, and then there were steps nearing the bathroom and Bucky was there.

His face was wet even before he stepped inside the shower, fully clothed, and took Steve's face in his hands. He kissed him senselessly, pushing him against the tiled wall, muttering profanities and I-love-yous between kisses. He kissed him to make up for all their lost time and to tease their future. Steve couldn't breathe - he felt like a tiny asthmatic kid as Bucky kissed him with adoration and touched him with want.

On the floor of their living room the book was open, the words clear and underlined:

 

"You're in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won't tell you that he loves  
you, but he loves you. And you feel like you've done something terr-  
ible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself  
a grave in the dirt, and you're tired. You're in a car with a beautiful boy,  
and you're trying not to tell him that you love him, and you're trying to  
choke down the feeling, and you're trembling, but he reaches over and  
he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your  
heart taking root in your body, like you've discovered something you  
don't even have a name for."

 

In the margins, in his typically neat handwriting Steve had scribbled:

_I have a name for it, if you want it._

_Us._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> All quotes come from one of my favorite poets, Richard Siken, in particular the book Crush.
> 
> Also, I can't seem to stop switching tenses. Sorry!


End file.
